Come to RICHFIELDS' Stakeholder Platform Meeting

We are pleased to invite you to RICHFIELDS Stakeholder Platform Meeting that will take place on the 2nd of June 2016 at Penta Hotel, Brussels. The aim of the meeting is to introduce RICHFIELDS to the stakeholder community, and identify the stakeholders' needs for the scientific and business cases. Speakers will present the background and aims of RICHFIELDS and lead interactive breakout sessions to explore your needs and ideas to understand and better use consumer-generated data. Our symposium will provide an ideal forum for you to learn about RICHFIELDS and make contact with researchers improving knowledge about healthy food choices. This is an excellent opportunity to engage with a major EU-funded research initiative in this early phase of development.

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Questionnaire by Bridge-Health (a DG-SANTÉ project)

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Created on Monday, 01 February 2016 13:26

Work on health in pregnancy and young people?

Please fill in the RICHE project's short online questionnaire by 5 February: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BridgeHealth-WP7. The survey is aimed at people who work on the health and well-being of pregnant women, infants, children, adolescents and young people (from conception to 24 years).

Bridge-Health is a project supported under the EU action of the Public Health Programme (http://www.bridge-health.eu) to prepare for a sustainable integrated EU health information system for both public health and research purposes. The RICHE (Child Health research strategy) project is taking part in Bridge-Health. The RICHE project is tasked with seeing how people use and access health information, specifically information on the health and well-being of children and young adults, across Europe.

DISH-RI workshop

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Created on Tuesday, 26 January 2016 16:38

SAVE THE DATE!

WORKSHOP DISH-RI

18 February 2016 – Brussels

Goal:

To exchange and discuss in a comprehensive manner the interactions between the overarching DISH-RI and relevant RIs and Programmes.

DISH‐RI is an overarching RI and aims to address the question of determinants of food choice, intake of food, status of the human body and mind as well as health problems during the life course.

Further details will be available soon.

Webinars of the final conference

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Created on Friday, 21 August 2015 10:05

EuroDISH Final Conference Webinars:

The project’s final conference ‘Proposal for a food & health research infrastructure in Europe’ held in the EU pavilion of the Expo Milano, 15 May 2015, showcased the results of the 3-year EU-funded project. All presentations from the conference are available in the form of webinars - click here to watch.

Europe needs a better infrastructure for food and health research

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Created on Thursday, 09 July 2015 10:22

EuroDISH, a three-year EU-funded project (Sep 2012-Aug 2015), has mapped and defined the infrastructures in four areas of research related to food, nutrition and health. The project identified the gaps and needs of infrastructures required to advance food and health research. EuroDISH has produced a roadmap to develop a research infrastructure by 2025 that will connect and overarch existing infrastructures across the related fields.

The electronic version may be shared and forwarded. Should you wish to receive print copies, please contact christina.sadler(at)eufic.org.

Press release: Europe needs a better infrastructure for food and health research

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Created on Thursday, 21 May 2015 10:25

Press release: Europe needs a better infrastructure for food and health research

Europe needs a world-class research infrastructure to help researchers better understand the relationship between food, nutrition and health. The EuroDISH project, which is EU-funded (Sep 2012-Aug 2015), produced a roadmap for the deployment of an overarching European food and health research infrastructure by 2025. The project’s results were presented at the Expo in Milan, in Italy, on Friday 15 May 2015.

While the agricultural, food and health sectors have advanced research infrastructures to perform cutting-edge science, the relationship between food, nutrition and health requires more synchronisation. The link-up of standards and data on the intake of food and food-choice determinants will enable faster progress. Therefore, there is a need for an overarching European research infrastructure for ‘determinants, intake, status and health’ — also known as the DISH-RI.

“The EuroDISH RI will contribute to capacity development of food, nutrition and health RIs that are relevant for public health nutrition strategies across Europe. This will enable improving the overall quality of the European population’s diet, nutritional status and health.” Professor Mirjana Gurinovic (Research team leader-nutrition at CENM and member of the EuroDISH Project Advisory Board)

The project’s final results were presented on 15 May 2015 in the EU pavilion of the Expo Milano 2015, in Italy. During its three-year duration, EuroDISH has mapped and defined RIs in four areas of research related to food, nutrition and health; identified as determinants, intake, status, health (DISH). For each area, gaps and needs were identified:

RIs in the research field of ‘status’ and ‘health’ are emerging.

There are major opportunities to improve RIs in the research field of ‘determinants’ related to intake of food.

There is no specific RI that serves the needs of the food and health research community over the DISH research fields as a whole.

Based on those findings, EuroDISH proposed a unique RI (named ‘DISH-RI’) with the aim to connect and overarch existing infrastructures across the four areas for the advancement of food and health research in Europe. The goal is for the DISH-RI to be fully operational within 10 years, for which stakeholder support as well as funding at both member state and EU level is required. The DISH-RI will link knowledge of what determinesconsumers’ food and lifestyle choices to what is known about people’s dietary intakes, their nutritional status, and their overall health, to improve healthy lifestyle strategies. It will enable research for better understanding of the behaviour of consumers concerning food intake and lifestyle, including emerging opportunities in ICT and neuroscience. It will connect high-quality data to innovative and standardised tools across different research disciplines. Finally, the DISH-RI would help to connect research on food production and health to address Europe’s societal challenges and will foster product innovation and increase competitiveness.

“DISH-RI is needed to connect currently fragmented pieces of research on determinants, intake, status and health (DISH). The project has outlined the steps needed for the DISH-RI to be fully operational by 2025.”Professor Pieter van ‘t Veer, Wageningen UR, Scientific Coordinator of EuroDISH

It will also provide services that support scientists and stakeholders for education and capacity building. Not only will the DISH-RI support the research community, but also policy makers and professionals, while increasing the impact of public health nutrition strategies and improve the health of all Europeans. In-depth discussions with stakeholders supported the development of the DISH-RI, which would allow public-private partnerships that accommodate different interests.

“The mapping as performed by EuroDISH contributes to the actions needed to establish a European Nutrition and Food Research Institute as envisioned by the Joint Programming Initiative 'A healthy diet for a healthy life’.”Jolien Wenink (Project Manager JPI-HDHL and member of the EuroDISH Project Advisory Board)

The EuroDISH project proposes for the structure of the DISH-RI to be based upon the ‘hub-and-spoke’ model, with a central coordination hub and connected expertise from different countries. An ICT platform will support standardisation, talking similar languages and using comparable formats for data, to better connect research. A central access point will provide services to researchers, stakeholders, and related RIs. In addition, a governance structure will provide the conditions for access for public or private partners, such as membership, ownership, privacy, enabling flexibility as researchers will be able to innovate by sharing data.

Notes:The project EuroDISH (Studying the need for food and health research infrastructures in Europe) has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration (contract n°311788). The project started on 1 September 2012 and lasted for a duration of three years.

EuroDISH is dual-led and split into clear responsibilities but combined within the same organisation, Wageningen UR. The Project Coordinator is Krijn Poppe of LEI Wageningen UR. The Scientific Coordinator is Professor Pieter van ’t Veer of Wageningen University (WU, The Netherlands). Karin Zimmermann, of LEI Wageningen UR is the project manager.

The consortium of 15 partners covers a wide range of areas of expertise (e.g. psychology, bioinformatics, epidemiological research, and analysis of food composition and food consumption), from seven countries: the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy and Sweden. The European Food Information Council (EUFIC) is responsible for communication and dissemination of EuroDISH results and activities.

Milano Milestone

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Created on Wednesday, 20 May 2015 09:13

MILANO MILESTONE

Declaration of the EuroDISH results and discussion points on future needs at the World Expo Milano, May 15th 2015

EuroDISH outcomes show that there is a need for one European research infrastructure that is specific for the research field of food in relation to nutrition and health and that overarches the aspects of determinants, intake, status and health (DISH disciplines):a) Researchers need an overarching research infrastructure that fills important gaps and overcomes fragmentation by linking existing research to enable cutting edge research.b) Policy makers need more scientific insights on how to change the food environment and stimulate consumers towards a more healthy diet in order to improve health and prevent further cost increases of diet-related diseases.c) Food industry needs scientific insights to foster product innovation and strengthen its competitive position.d) Societal organisations and professionals need a solid evidence base for their strategies and advice.

The European food, nutrition, and health research field will benefit from:a) Access to public and private data, at larger (European) scale, and across disciplines.b) Access to innovative and standardised research tools.c) Participation in a research community across DISH disciplines and wider participation across countries.d) More efficient use of funding and resources by collaboration between Member States which enables alignment and avoids duplication.

The requirements to build this research infrastructure are:a) A platform that facilitates connection of future and existing initiatives and stimulates participation of researchers by a well governed E-infrastructure.b) Support in national roadmaps and strategic agendas.c) Political and financial commitment at Member State level to build national hubs.d) Political and financial commitment at European level to guarantee a sustainable research infrastructure with an ERIC (European Research Infrastructure Consortium) status that is aligned with global initiatives.

The overarching European research infrastructure accommodates the different interests of public and private stakeholders involved:a) In their role of providers of data and as users of the services of the research infrastructure.b) In the business model and governance structure of the research infrastructure

Listen to the latest EuroDISH podcast!

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Created on Monday, 04 May 2015 10:46

Now that the EuroDISH project is in its third and final year, we asked Professor Pieter van't Veer, the scientific coordinator of the project, what are the key findings of EuroDISH? How should research infrastructure look like to advance the study of food and health? And moving forward, what are the next steps now the project is coming to an end?

EuroDISH project final conference: Proposal for a food and health research infrastructure in Europe

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Created on Tuesday, 10 March 2015 09:55

Interested in developments of food and health research infrastructures? Invitation for public health policy makers, funders and researchers

SAVE THE DATE for the EuroDISH project's final conference, 15th May 2015, EXPO Milano in Italy!

We invite you to hear and discuss the EuroDISH project's final results on 15th May 2015, during the 'Food, Nutrition, Health and Wellbeing' week in the EU pavilion of the EXPO Milano 2015. The EXPO is themed 'Feed the Planet, Energy for Life', and around 20 million visitors are expected over a 6 month period.

EuroDISH will propose the research infrastructure needed to advance food and health research, after the end of the three-year project, which receives funding from the European Commission. Relevant initiatives, like the Joint Programming Initiative 'A Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life' (JPI HDHL), FP7 project FoodManufuture, and the European Science Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI), will explain how EuroDISH findings relate to societal and scientific challenges in the food and health domain and to other research infrastructures. This is a unique opportunity to discuss the steps required to make this conceptual design a reality, and find out how you can be part of it.

You may also be interested in attending the following related sessions, in the same week.

13 May

Grand debate on Nutrition Security – a whole system approach. A joint JPI FACCE – JPI HDHL EVENT on the impact of climate change on providing a sustainable food supply that has the nutritional requirements to ensure a healthy population.

Thanks from the EuroDISH team!

EuroDISH Newsletter No.3 2014

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Created on Wednesday, 12 November 2014 16:12

What's new from the EuroDISH project?

This third EuroDISH newsletter follows the 4th EuroDISH plenary meeting, 22-23 September, Zaandam, the Netherlands. It was a lively and interactive meeting between the project partners, inspired by the following questions.

Which research questions cannot be answered with current infrastructures?

What new research infrastructure is needed to allow innovative research?

EuroDISH is seeking the views of stakeholders. What do you think? Join the discussions on the EuroDISH Linkedin Group.

Answer our surveyon “Research infrastructure needs for innovative mechanistic studies related to nutrition”. If you add your email address at the end of the survey, we will invite you to the EuroDISH final conference at the Expo Milano 2015 (register early as places are limited).

Stakeholder Views on Research Infrastructures for Innovative Mechanistic Studies

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Created on Friday, 07 November 2014 15:58

EuroDISH partners have performed a case study, using the NuGO-developed Nutritional Phenotype Data Infrastructure (dbNP, http://www.dbnp.org) to describe different larger human nutrition studies in an interoperable way. This allowed creation of virtual cohorts to compare transcriptomics and metabolomics results at different time points after oral glucose tolerance tests from studies performed in different laboratories.

EuroDISH has produced a draft design needed for nutritional intervention studies (Figure 1). Several gaps have been identified. We have shown that it is possible with the current infrastructure to reuse nutritional data as a virtual cohort and that different challenge studies can be compared. Further standardisation is needed to support other research questions. Building additional workflows supporting more automated processing, systematic storage and querying of processed data at several levels is required for further integration of study results. In order to seek stakeholder views on additional requirements for research infrastructure, a workshop was organised and a survey composed.

The open EuroDISH workshop on "Requirements for Research (Data) Infrastructures for Innovative Mechanistic Studies" was held during the 11th NuGOweek, which took place 8-11 September 2014, at The Vesuvian Institute, Castellammare di Stabia, Italy. The experiences with the infrastructure were presented and discussed with conference participants.

In an in-depth analysis the participants discussed what kind of nutrition specific infrastructure would be needed in future studies. They realised that part of the success of the case study could be explained by its designed focus on tasks for which infrastructure had already been developed. For other aspects, important blocks are still lacking, for example tools to communicate between metabolomics labs about unidentified peaks originating from the same compound, or tools to map metabolomics measurements on classes of compounds to biological pathways. These and other infrastructural needs were identified during the workshop.

Many of these needs are shared with other biological and health research fields and will be covered by more general ESFRI (European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures) projects like ELIXIR (European Life Science Infrastructure for Biological Information) and BBMRI (Biobanking and Biomolecular Resources Research Infrastructure). Others are either nutrition specific (like food intake and some challenge tests) or are so much more important for nutrition research than anywhere else that we think nutrition should take the lead (like the metabolomics examples mentioned above).

In the final report about the case study the results will be combined with input from stakeholders. For this purpose stakeholders not present at the meeting, are kindly invited to give feedback on their experienced needs and requirements for research infrastructures, including emerging ones. Please click here to complete the survey and take the opportunity to share your expertise and opinion on data infrastructures for nutrition research and future directions for related European funding.

The results will feed into the overall recommendations of EuroDISH on the research infrastructure needed for food and health research.

We look forward to working together to provide Europe with a core advanced infrastructure for nutrition and health research.

EuroDISH 3rd Stakeholder Workshop: EuroDISH Perspective on Conceptual Design and Roadmap – The European Research Infrastructure for the Food and Health Domain

EuroDISH Perspective on Conceptual Design and Roadmap – The European Research Infrastructure for the Food and Health Domain

The workshop will aim:

To critically evaluate and optimise the EuroDISH conceptual design and roadmap.

To enhance the acceptance and use of the results by stakeholders.

EuroDISH Final Conference: Bringing European infrastructure onto one DISH to optimise food and health research

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Created on Thursday, 09 October 2014 14:37

Are you a policy maker, involved in funding decisions, or interested in food and health research?

SAVE THE DATE! Final EuroDISH project conference, 15th May 2015, at the Expo Milano 2015, Italy.

The results of the EuroDISH project will be presented on 15th May 2015, during the ‘Food, Nutrition, Health and Wellbeing’ week in the European Union pavilion of the EXPO. The EXPO is themed ‘Feed the Planet, Energy for Life’, and around 20 million visitors are expected over a 6 month period.

The EuroDISH project results will be shared and discussed with 100 invited stakeholders. Relevant initiatives like FoodManufuture, a related FP7 project, and the European Science Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI), which supports policy-making on research infrastructures, will explain how EuroDISH findings fit into the bigger picture.

EuroDISH Newsletter No.2 2014

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Created on Friday, 16 May 2014 12:41

What's new from the EuroDISH project?

The second EuroDISH newsletter comes after the 3rd EuroDISH plenary meeting, where all the project partners came together to share the developments and discuss the upcoming activities of the project.

To ensure its recommendations are actionable, EuroDISH will perform two case studies on research infrastructures. The first case study focuses on the integration of two major existing platforms on food consumption and food composition (nutrient and other food components), relevant to enhancing comparable dietary assessment and monitoring throughout Europe.

IFR (Institute of Food Research, UK) and EuroFIR AISBL (European Food Information Resource, BE) have been working together with IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer, World Health Organization, FR) on developing and testing an interface between the e-SMP (e-Standardized Methodological Platform, for standardised dietary intake data) and the EuroFIR Food Data Composition Platform (for harmonized nutrient and other food component data). E-SMP, which is still under development, is a platform intended to support the maintenance and dissemination of a highly standardised 24-hour dietary recall programme (EPIC-Soft) already implemented in seven countries (NL, BE, DE, FR, CH, AT, MT). These integrated platforms will facilitate future international studies by standardising dietary methodologies and allowing comparison of results among countries and across projects over time. Further aims are to improve cost-effectiveness in countries with limited local technical resources and skills in dietary assessment, to promote independence and flexibility, and to simplify communication and data synchronisation and (or) exchange.

As part of the development and testing phases, teams from JSI (Jozef Stefan Institute, SI), THL (National Institute for Health and Welfare, FI) and EU national food composition database compiler and (or) food consumption survey organisations (e.g. RIVM (National Institute for Public Health and the Environment) NL, MRI (Max Rubner-Institut) DE, CRA-NUT (Research Center on Food and Nutrition) IT and IFR UK) are mapping consumption data with composition information. If we are to understand what nutrients, bioactives and contaminants are being consumed and their effects on the health of European citizens, it is vital these datasets can be matched, despite different terminology and other technical barriers. Whilst this can be done manually, realistically it is more cost-effective to develop an algorithm for computer-assisted matching. However, the role of those experienced in dietary assessment will continue where terms cannot be matched automatically or need to be checked for the correct assignment. Preliminary results indicate that the quality of the algorithm matching is largely dependent on the completeness and quality of the composition databases, particularly in terms of indexing to LanguaL ('language of food', an automated method for describing, capturing and retrieving data about food) and the availability of food names in English. The initial results will provide feedback to improve the algorithm, and will help to identify gaps in the current composition databases, which, if addressed, could further improve the accuracy of matching.

The final task is to design and assess the potential for an interface between these two pre-existing e-platforms, potentially as part of larger food and health research infrastructure(s) including the other DISH pillars. Beneficiaries are discussing the potential and limitations as well as identifying barriers to implementation in the medium to long term (e.g. governance, access to data, technical requirements). Many of the national food consumption survey organisations in Europe are also national food composition database compiler organisations, meaning that a joint 'sustainability framework' could be developed.

Listen to the EuroDISH podcast!

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Created on Monday, 24 March 2014 10:46

We spoke to three coordinators of the EuroDISH project. In this podcast, research infrastructures and the objectives of the EuroDISH project are explained. We also hear what the D-I-S-H acronym in the project title stands for. The coordination team share some of the preliminary findings, as well as the upcoming plans. Stakeholders are encouraged to contribute to the project, by joining workshops and the free online discussion forum.

Click here to listen to the interview and read more about the speakers!

First leaflet about the EuroDISH project

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Created on Thursday, 05 September 2013 10:42

EuroDISH has just published its first leaflet. Click here to read all about the project, our objectives and the partners involved.

The electronic version may be shared and forwarded. Should you wish to receive print copies, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Receive the EuroDISH newsletter

Press release: Bringing researchers and tools onto one DISH to optimise European food and health research

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Created on Wednesday, 20 March 2013 11:21

Brussels, 20 March 2013 -- In Europe 86% of deaths and 77% of the disease burden are related to our diets and lifestyles. Scientists are working hard to identify effective interventions, but organising European food and health research in a competitive and collaborative way is essential to turn taxpayer money into benefits for all. According to the European Science Foundation, “about 85 per cent of public research investment goes only to national endeavours.” In response, the new EU-funded project EuroDISH aims to assess the current state of play to eventually make advanced and feasible recommendations to the European Strategy Forum for Research Infrastructures (ESFRI), other stakeholders, and the HORIZON2020 programme. A major step along the way is the engagement of policy and decision makers. EuroDISH has created a special forum on its newly launched project website at www.eurodish.eu where interested parties can sign up.

EuroDISH kick-off meeting

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Created on Wednesday, 26 September 2012 14:07

26-27 September 2012 saw the EuroDISH project kick-off in The Hague, The Netherlands, where consortium partners gathered to discuss the upcoming research. Hosted by project coordinators, LEI Wageningen UR (legal name Stichting Dienst Landbouwkundig Onderzoek) and Wageningen University, the consortium shared their views and progress on the research so far.